PROLOGUE
Revenge
Bingmei awoke in the darkness before dawn to the sound of wind. The sky was marbled with heavy clouds that hung low, obscuring the nearby mountains normally visible through the upper windows. Leaves were chased from the limbs of crooked trees and herded into the courtyard, scraping and rasping against the stone as they went. The air had the smell of ice, the portent of a storm. The season seemed to have shifted overnight, sliding toward winter. Too soon. A spike of worry pierced her chest. Her parents were still not back from their journey. An early winter meant death to anyone caught in the vast wilderness.
Bingmei rose and ate her morning meal of fish and yarrow tea, anxious to be in the training yard. Practicing saber techniques usually tamed her fears, but as she swung the sword in the usual arcs, her eyes kept straying to the spruce limbs swaying wildly above the quonsuun’s high walls. Raindrops pattered her head, reminding her of the shift in the weather. She worked until her arms and wrists were sore, her knees aching from holding the stances so long.
Grandfather Jiao came to watch her practice. She knew he was there because of his smell—warm bread with sugary honey drizzled on the crust. A peek revealed that he stood at the edge of the training yard, smiling indulgently as he stroked his long white beard. Her nose never lied, which was why she was unnerved to note a vinegary edge to his scent. Was it worry? Had the sudden change in the season alarmed him as well?
After practicing for several hours, Bingmei climbed the wooden ladder within the training yard to reach the outer wall of the quonsuun. Patrolling it with a pike was Zizhu, who kept his eyes on the horizon. The interior roof was heavily curved, which helped protect the guards against the drifts of snow that would soon pummel the mountains. A fierce wind rippled his cloak, as if determined to yank him off the wall and throw him down to the gorse below.
He turned as she walked toward him. “Get down, young miss!” he said with a scowl. “You’re light enough to blow away!”
She hated being reminded of her size and gave him a scowl in return. “I’m not a leaf to be blown away,” she said. “What have you seen?”
The low-hanging clouds veiled the ridges. Rumbles of thunder sounded in the distance.
“I can’t see a thing,” Zizhu complained. “They could be hiking up the trail from the fjord, and I wouldn’t know it.”
“It doesn’t help that you’re half-blind, Zizhu.”
“Blind? Come closer, and I’ll rap you with my pole!”
“You could try, Zizhu, but how would you hit me if you can’t see? You might fall and stab yourself with the pike.”
“Another insult! You should respect your elders.”
She gave him a grin. He smelled like chestnuts. “When you’re too old to climb the ladder, then I’ll start respecting you, Zizhu.”
“Agh, you are cruel, young mistress.” He smirked at her, shaking his head. “Your parents named you too well!”
Bingmei smiled. Their banter was all in good humor. Her name meant “ice rose.” It wasn’t that it suited her because her skin was so pale, although it was, or because she was beautiful, because she wasn’t. Her face was too big, and she was too short and skinny.
No, Father had named her Bingmei, a rose that blooms in winter, because he wished for her to embrace her thorns.
Her parents owned the family ensign, the security and bodyguard business her grandfather had started when he’d served the ruler of Yiwu. But boundaries between the kingdoms shifted like the winds and the river deposits.
The banner of their ensign was a mountain leopard, which were more common in the mountains where Grandfather had grown up. Her family had a reputation for their martial skills. They were feared by the lawless groups of Qiangdao, who owed allegiance to none of the kings and who pillaged caravans or snuck into towns to rob the estates of the wealthy. Each season, emissaries climbed up the mountain to the quonsuun, seeking their help.
As she stood on the wall, she turned her head and gazed down at her home. No one knew who’d built it. The thick stone walls and meiwood timbers were solid, and although speckled with lichen, they had defied the ravages of time and weather. While the roof tiles had been patched over the years, the curving slope did well under the onerous weight of snow. Some ancient civilization had constructed the quonsuun and many of the cities within their world. It was unknown what had become of the ancients, but their buildings had outlasted them, and so had the symbols they’d engraved in their architecture and art. Like the leopard, a creature that had come to symbolize the taming of cruelty. When her father and mother had arrived at their destination, having successfully protected the caravan they’d been hired to accompany, the leopard symbol was received with joy and gladness.
What the sign had meant originally, no one knew. There were some creatures depicted in statuary and ornamental designs that still mystified those looking at them. Did those kinds of animals even exist anymore? Had they ever existed?
So much of the world was a mystery to Bingmei. Where had her ancestors come from? Why were so many languages spoken throughout the kingdoms? Why was so much of the year spent in shadow, the other in light? No one understood, but the change had been attributed to the dragons of myth—the light half of the year was known as the Dragon of Dawn, the dark half as the Dragon of Night.
Worry began to bubble up again as she sniffed the cold, sharp air. If winter came too soon, her parents wouldn’t be able to finish their journey. She didn’t want to spend the Dragon of Night without her parents, trapped in the quonsuun without news of their adventures.
The rain began to fall in earnest then, striking at Bingmei and Zizhu viciously as the skies began to seethe.
“Have you seen any sign of the fog?” Bingmei asked worriedly, wiping a drop that had landed on her nose.
“No, young miss. Try not to worry. They’ll be back. I thought I heard a noise in the distance. I know it must be them.”
“Shout when you see them coming,” Bingmei ordered.
He frowned at her. “I am Zizhu, a free man! You cannot order me about, little miss! You are only ten years old.”
“I’m twelve! Now promise me you’ll shout, or I’ll throw stones at you from down below!”
“If I thought you could hit me, I’d be worried,” he said. “Now get out of the rain before your petals fall off.”
She bounded back to the ladder, glancing into the distance one last time, but her view was impeded by layers of storm clouds. A shiver ran down her back.
The storm made practicing in the training yard unpleasant, so Bingmei worked on her fist techniques within the quonsuun itself. It smelled like spoiling fruit, but she burned incense to banish the stench. Only Bingmei could smell it, but a feeling of unease hung in the air, which had everyone agitated.
Grandfather didn’t seek her out, but she saw glimpses of him on and off throughout the day. Pacing. Watching the walls and the storm raging outside, his hands clasped behind his back. It was unlike him to brood, which only heightened Bingmei’s sense of dread. Servants splashed through the courtyard as they ran for cover between their duties. The quonsuun housed twelve servants, but most of the living quarters were vacant since the bulk of the warriors had gone on the mission with her parents, leaving Zizhu and seven others to guard it in their absence.